Blue Notes on White Nights
by Tammany Tiger
Summary: Very low-key friendship with a dash of lightweight hurt/comfort. Quiet, moody. You can see it as Sherstrade if you squint right. Lestrade's having a bad night. So's Sherlock. Depression stinks.


It was simply a bad night. No reason—or too many reasons. Depression, mainly. Lestrade sighed, and poured out a scotch. Topped it with soda. Settled on the bed, docked his phone in the speaker dock, and tried to read.

Failed.

Failed some more.

Tried to generate a fantasy—any kind. Sex. Adventure. Tell himself a story. Solve an old case. Anything.

Instead his mind wandered pitifully, dodging back and forth, never settling on anything. It ricocheted off topics like a fancy-shot billiards ball caroming off of the cushions of a billiard table…only to miss the pocket. The result was an ungodly mess.

He made himself shower. Came back, changed into running pants and a T, and turned off the lights, pulling the blankets up almost over his head. Didn't get anywhere. Instead worked through all the fails in his life lately—a bit of this, a bit of that, his life feeling increasingly out of control. He didn't know whether to be angry or grateful when the phone blipped an incoming text.

Need more information on Versley case. SH

Too bad. You've got all I know.

Impossible. What color were the victim's socks? SH

Um…. Green, I think. Why?

No reason. What about the state of her manicure? SH

Lestrade closed his eyes and tried to remember.

Maybe a bit plain. No polish. Short nails. Why?

No reason. What about her hair cut. There must be something about her haircut. SH

Not that I can recall. Short. Pixie cut, I think they call it. Why?

No reason. Earrings? SH

Lestrade fought and fought, and came up blank.

No. No idea. Call Donovan. Or our new forensics guy. I'm drawing a blank.

Failing memory, Lestrade? Growing old? SH

Yeah. Old. Tired. Depressed. At the end of my chain. Now sod off, Holmes.

You've got something better to do? SH

No. And I don't care. Even nothing is better than dealing with your bumf tonight. Do your own investigating.

Lestrade, do try to concentrate. There's a case to work on. SH

Good for you. It should keep you happy. Leave me the hell alone.

Lestrade? Are you all right? SH

Did John steal your phone? If so—John, make Sherlock leave me alone. I feel like crap tonight and he's not helping.

Lestrade…explain. SH

Nothing to explain, mate. Tired. Knackered. Leave me alone. I'm turning the phone off, now. Night.

He turned the phone off and buried himself deeper in the covers, feeling worse, if anything.

A bad night. No reason for it. Worse than it had been in years…though it had been creeping up on him for a while. Sometimes keeping busy helped. Other times it didn't. Tonight nothing much seemed to cut through the fog.

Nights like this he could understand Sherlock and his drugs. Or John after Sherlock's "death." Or his wife, during their years of marriage. Sometimes it just wore on him. Not usually. He tried to stay on the sunny side, when possible.

Tonight it wasn't good, though.

He crept out of bed and walked restlessly through the dark flat, refusing to turn on the lamps or overheads. There was enough faint light leaking in from the street outside, and he knew his way around well enough. He paced. He did stretches. A quick set of basic exercise reps: sit-ups, push-ups, a bit of jogging in place. The mood didn't budge.

He tried wanking. Ended up so tired of his own dick it was pitiful.

The remains of the scotch and soda failed to do a thing for him, for better or worse.

He was in the bedroom sitting on the mattress trying to decide if he'd reached the point of consciously not-thinking about the automatic he carried when being MI5 operative Lestrade, rather than DI Lestrade, when there was a knock at the door. Not sure if he was angry or frantically relieved, he slipped out and opened the door without turning on any of the flat lights. He squinted out into the hall beyond.

"Oh, bugger. Just what I need. Sherlock, sod off."

Holmes just frowned at him, appearing to hover between annoyance and uncertainty. "No. There's something wrong. What?"

"Look, mate, just a white night. OK? They happen."

"White night?"

"Can't sleep. Can't shut the mind up, but it refuses to think anything useful—mainly thinks ugly things, instead. You know. White night."

Sherlock looked, if possible, even more puzzled. "Normal people don't get those. Do they?"

"Of course they do. What? You thought it was some kind of divine curse only you exceptional Holmeses got?" Lestrade gave a sour laugh. "No such luck, sunshine. Now, you know what's wrong. From the sound of it you've been there enough to know it's not going to budge anytime soon. So…just clear out, and let me get on with it."

Sherlock hurrumphed, instead, and shouldered into the flat. "Dark," he said, casually, as though it were fairly unimportant but mildly interesting.

"Yes, genius. Trying to sleep. Depressed, too. So—dark." Lestrade decided he wasn't going to get anywhere trying to talk him into leaving: he was on some kind of Sherlockian thingy, and he'd go when he chose, and not one minute sooner. That didn't mean Lestrade had to cooperate. "You make yourself at home. I'm going back to bed." He didn't wait for Sherlock to respond, just headed back to his bedroom, closed the door, and curled back into his covers.

The room was even darker than the rest of the flat, with blackout curtains (a cop and undercover operative was too likely to have to do night work and sleep in the day—Lestrade took blackout curtains really seriously) and no light source but the clock—and he'd draped that with a pair of his pants earlier. He closed his eyes.

He could hear Sherlock moving around in the outer rooms. It was oddly comforting. A nice compromise between being alone and having a companion. No need to converse. It was different from the sound of the neighbors in the surrounding flats: it was someone he knew, who'd come to his house because he was concerned for Lestrade. It felt…nice.

The bedroom door opened. "Yes. I did think this was just me and Mycroft. The thing with the mind, anyway. It's like watching traffic from a plane: all of that activity, but somehow it seems to have nothing to do with you. Just patterns that won't stop."

"Umhuh," Lestrade grunted, squinting up at Sherlock's dark form so lightly silhouetted in the door, backlit by the faint light of the room beyond. Such a small light difference between the two rooms, but it was enough to turn Sherlock into a towering shadow.

"Cocaine helped. For this, though, morphine was better. Soothing."

"Not a good idea, Sherlock," Lestrade said. "I already drink more than I really should. Smoke too much. Let's not add to the chemist's list for me, eh?"

"No. Agreed," Sherlock said. "Much as I regret admitting, it's caused some complications for me."

"No shit, Sherlock? I hadn't guessed," Lestrade said. He eased up, leaning on one elbow. "Why are you here, Sherlock?"

The dark figure shrugged. "White night."

"Ah." That made sense. Idiot texting. Persistent grasp for attention. Insanity of coming on over to Lestrade's place. "Ok. What do you want to do, then? I'm too tired for games. Too miserable for conversation. Too…I don't know. Too strung out for crazy sex, even if we were interested in each other. Don't have a deck of cards. Play solitaire on my laptop when I really want to play solitaire. It's not like I've got a cure for white nights, sunshine."

"No."

"So what do you want to do?"

"Music? Listen to music."

"Here?"

"Yes."

"At my flat?"

"Yes."

Lestrade thought about it. It really was soothing to simply have Sherlock here. Better than him not here and texting him, that was certain. He sighed, reached for his phone, and turned it back on. "Mostly I listen to this on the dock speakers. Scroll through and see if you find something you want to hear."

"This? This is it?"

"Not a rich man, Sherlock. And not home much. A decent stereo system seemed a bit of an indulgence."

Sherlock sniffed, but took the phone and started flipping through the menu. "No. No. No. Oh, really, Lestrade! No. No. Do you mind if I download some things that might work?"

Lestrade sighed. "No. Go ahead."

Sherlock fussed and clucked, then slipped the phone into the dock. A second later complex saxophone jazz eased out, the volume low. "Coltrane. It seemed like it might land in the overlap between our Venn diagrams."

"Venn…oh. Yeah. OK. Yeah. I can do this."

Sherlock didn't comment. Instead he closed the bedroom door. A second later Lestrade heard him slide down the door itself, to sit cross-legged on the carpet.

"There's a chair over by the window, you know," Lestrade said.

"No. I'm fine."

"Ok. Just…it's there if you change your mind."

"Mmmm."

They were both silent.

It was, Lestrade thought, comfortable. Insane. But comfortable. He could hear Sherlock's breath, just barely audible over the music. He fell asleep, at last, to soft saxophone rills and the first slow snores of his unexpected roommate.


End file.
